MWC Extra – Elliptic Labs

Our old friends Elliptic Labs were in Barcelona again and I made a point of revisiting. If you’re not familiar with their tech, have a look at our coverage of Mobile World Congress last year and 2014. Basically put, they use radar technology to track your hand movements, whether it be behind, in front or to the side of your device.

The results are pretty spectacular, and you’re able to interact with your phone or tablet in a whole new way. No camera sensor needed – this is detecting your hand approaching and either lighting up the screen of your phone, displaying information or making a character move on screen based on how close your hand gets to the device.

This year there was a demo of some other kit housing the technology, including a lamp that you can turn on and off just by flapping your hand in the air a certain way, plus a smoke alarm which can be muted in a similar fashion.

However, I wanted to come back because I was honestly surprised as to why this tech hadn’t made it into smartphones as yet. It seemed like a no-brainer in 2014, and it still does now.

Guenael Strutt, who’s the VP of Product Development at Elliptic, told me that working with handset manufacturers was a big undertaking. It nvolved a lot of their staff to be working with the manufacturer for a long length of time. Not only that, but encouraging handset manufacturers to add more components into their handsets proved an uphill battle. Packing more stuff into a slim package is a big ask.

So Elliptic have taken a different route, but they’re still bristling with confidence about the end result. They’ve chosen instead to get the manufacturers to take something out of their phones – namely the existing proximity sensor.

A proximity sensor often needs a couple of holes on the front of the phone, which looks a bit naff, so Elliptic have created a new system called “Beauty” which delivers an ultrasonic software-only solution. The result, when you look at the front of the phone, is one hole instead of two, as Elliptic Labs have instead used their technology to do the proximity checking.

The hope is, in the coming months, that they can add a second sensor into the microphone hole. This will then let them do a lot of the cool tracking technology that we’ve seen in years gone by, but without the 4-sensor requirement that has been needed until now.

San Francisco, Calif. and Shanghai, China — January 19, 2016 — After revolutionizing the user interface market for mobile devices with its unique ultrasound technology, innovator Elliptic Labs has turned its attention toward reinventing the optical proximity sensor for smartphones. Hardware-based optical sensors have been an indispensable part of every smartphone since their inception to turn off the screen and disable touch functionality when a user holds a device to their ear. By replacing these hardware components, with Elliptic Labs’ “BEAUTY” — the first software-based solution to replace the optical proximity sensor — the unsightly black holes on the front of smartphone will be removed. The result is a more aesthetically pleasing design.

The optical proximity sensor requires one rectangular black shape or two large holes on the screen, these sensors detect when users are in call mode so the touchscreen can be deactivated. Smartphone designers have long wanted to remove these unattractive holes on the faceplate of the phone, but without the proximity functionality, a user’s cheek could accidentally trigger functions on the screen.

The hardware performing this required function has remained unchanged for years and represents a growing, multi-billion-dollar market worldwide. “We are disrupting this market with a superior software solution,” explained Laila Danielsen, CEO of Elliptic Labs. “Our BEAUTY ultrasonic software-only solution replaces and outperforms optical hardware sensors, beautifying mobile design, reducing cost and freeing up physical space inside mobile device. We will see our BEAUTY solution incorporated into phones in 2016.”

The BEAUTY ultrasonic software is based on the same breakthrough ultrasound technology that led ABI Research to name Elliptic Labs a global “Hot Tech Innovator” for 2015. The company’s sophisticated touchless gesture technology uses ultrasound to enable users to control electronic devices by hand movements all around a screen.

With Elliptic Labs BEAUTY product, ultrasound software delivers the proximity functionality, re-using the existing earpiece and microphone previously used only for audio. A potential game changer, Elliptic Labs’ BEAUTY software is the only technology today that can deliver the proximity functionality without using a physical hardware sensor.

Besides improving the smartphone design, Elliptic Labs BEAUTY software solves some of the issues associated with today’s optical proximity hardware sensors, reduces costs, and improves performance. Optical proximity sensors can be unreliable in certain weather conditions or in response to variations in hair and skin color. Elliptic Labs’ software approach has none of these limitations and delivers a greater detection range.

Elliptic Labs is working directly with OEMs to cost-effectively integrate BEAUTY ultrasound proximity software into phones.